Mode of Address: The Modernist Novel and Theory After Postmodernism / Davis Smith-Brecheisen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith-Brecheisen, Davis, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany SUNY Press, [2026]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Shows how competing ideas about the reader in US literature and literary theory of the late 1960s and '70s reconfigured both reading practices and our understanding of the novel as art. Despite claims that theory is a relic of a previous era of literary study, theory's fundamental assumptions persist in the belief that we as readers take an active role in the production of the meaning of the work of art. To make this case, Mode of Address returns to the 1960s and '70s to reevaluate competing attitudes about the reader in some ambitious novels and influential literary theory of the era. Examining figures such as Christine Brooke-Rose, Joan Didion, William H. Gass, John Hawkes, and Ishmael Reed alongside postmodern standard-bearers such as John Barth, Don DeLillo, William Gaddis, and Thomas Pynchon, Davis Smith-Brecheisen reveals how efforts to refuse or appeal to the reader revised and extended the modernist artwork's pursuit of autonomy. Exploring the era's conflicting positions about the reader, Smith-Brecheisen demonstrates that the epistemological aims of theory and the demands of literature are not as neatly aligned as many have maintained. Looking at recent works by authors such as Ben Lerner and Rachel Cusk, Smith-Brecheisen further demonstrates that this tension continues to shape contemporary reading practices and our understanding of the novel as art.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 The Readers Share

2 Finding a Form

3 Hollow Games or Experiments in Theory

4 What Nothing Means

5 The Persistence of Objects

6 The Contemporary Scene

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed March 30 2026)

ISBN:

9798855806557